Capital’s New Initiative Towards Green Transport: Delhi To Get 1,500 E-Buses!

The national capital of the country, New Delhi, is leading the charge towards adopting to a clean and green future. This is no random speak; but actual development.

If you were to actually look at the developments toward the sphere of eco-friendly and green vehicles particularly from the standpoint of what Delhi has done then it makes sense into dive into some useful milestones that pertain to the last nine months.

The amount of developments Delhi has been single handedly responsible for, whether it is adopting new E buses or even setting up latest, state of the art charging infrastructure is phenomenal.

On that count, it’s important to reflect on some salient moves:

1. Starting June, 2022, those who possess EVs can now charge their vehicles absolutely free of cost until 3 PM during the day time, as per an initiative taken by Electriva, which happens to be an EV charging start up.
2. Last year, circa November 2021, Delhi Government launched a one-of-its-kind EV charging guidebook whose central idea was to promote the concept of workplace charging of the electric vehicles.
3. Moreover, so rapid in a sense has been the EV adoption in the national capital that since 2020, around 7 per cent of all cars that were purchased in Delhi were electric

Now, the government is doing its fair bit by promoting the concept of eco commutation by way of adopting E buses. It has been shared in the public domain that no fewer than 3,500 electric buses will be procured -soon- by the Central government of India. The same will be used for allotment to state transport undertakings of as many as 9 urban Indian cities.

Also Read: How Is Delhi Working To Get More Women Behind The Wheels Of E Auto!

As such, you will note that cities whose existing population measuring north of 10 lakh fundamentally necessitate the adoption of such means of mass transport that takes into consideration the burgeoning problem of pollution and associated health woes.

That being said, it is important to take note of the following updates with regards to the Delhi Government getting new E buses (the same published in the leading print daily The Hindu):

With 7,081 buses in its fleet at the moment, the planned induction of more vehicles, in several phases over the coming months, will take the number of public buses beyond 7,300 in spite of the replacement of the 450 ageing vehicles on the DTC’s fleet. 

The fleet was last at its strongest, with 6,342 vehicles, in the year 2010. According to a senior official, the Delhi government’s target is to have 2,000 electric buses as part of its public transportation fleet.

“There are certain procedural modalities which will be completed over the coming few months. An agreement with the company procuring these vehicles for the country will be signed over the coming days followed by a nod from the DTC Board and Delhi Cabinet,” said a senior government official.

“Following these, the fleet of E buses, in batches, will begin rolling out towards the end of the year,” the official added. According to the official, as many as 1,400 buses are expected to be rolled out in several batches throughout 2022.

All of that said, it is believed that the new 1,500 e buses will be moving about in the city before the end of this year.